Kenyan soldiers on patrol in former stronghold of al Qaeda-backed militants

A Kenyan soldier stands guard in the center of the southern Somali port city of Kismayu on Oct. 5.

Reuters reports: Kenyan troops in Somalia are working flush out rebel remnants after al Qaeda-backed militants fled last week from their last major stronghold. "We don't want to be seen as an occupying force," Colonel Cyrus Oguna, a Kenyan army spokesman, told a Reuters reporter travelling with Kenyan forces. Al Shabaab fighters fled the southern Somali port city of Kismayu a week ago, leaving behind a small number of militants to carry out suicide bombings, hit-and-run grenade attacks and targeted shootings, Oguna said. Full Story

Unexploded ordnance, including rocket-propelled grenades and mortar shells left behind by the Al-Qaeda-affiliated extremist group Al Shabaab, are destroyed in a controlled detonation in Kismayu on Oct. 5.

A fighter of the pro-governmnet Ras Kimboni Brigade stands with a belt-fed machine gun inside the former compound housing the offices of the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) during a combat engineering team's sweep for unexploded ordnance in Kismayu on Oct. 5.